Medicine and Literature

Catalog description

This course surveys works of literature from multiple genres, cultures, and time periods in order to witness how literature emerges alongside developments and dilemmas in medical practice. Literature can represent medical experiences that other modes of scientific and clinical writing cannot contain. We will investigate the ways in which expressions and descriptions of pain often fall short. We will learn how various writers have used complex literary effects, narrative structures, and figurative language to compensate for the inarticulate and untranslatable experience of suffering, treatment, and recovery. We will also analyze the role of listeners and readers who must discover new techniques to treat patients and maladies (both physical and psychological) that they do not fully know.